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SEO for Nomads by Dan Seymour WPCNX

SEO Ideas for Nomads and Travel Bloggers by Dan Seymour (March 2026)

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Jef van de Graaf

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Today at the WPCNX meetup here in Chiang Mai, we had Daniel Seymour of SeymourSEO and Dan Round the World drop some real-world knowledge for of SEO for nomads and travel bloggers.

If you missed it, here’s what you need to know.

The Talk: SEO Isn’t Dead — It’s Evolving

Dan opened with something every SEO person has seen a hundred times: the annual “SEO is dead” headlines. From the Panda update in 2011 to AI Overviews in 2024 and the June 2025 Core Update, people have been writing SEO’s obituary for nearly three decades — while the industry’s market value keeps climbing.

His take? AI traffic (from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini) currently accounts for roughly 1% of his blog’s total visits. The sky isn’t falling — yet. But it’s worth paying attention to, especially with the rise of AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) alongside traditional SEO.

What Makes a Post SEO-Optimized?

Dan broke it down simply: your title should be a keyword, that keyword needs to appear in your intro and throughout your subheadings (H2s and H3s), and related terms should be woven naturally through the content. The key word being naturally — it still has to read like something a human would enjoy.

He showed his own Langkawi itinerary post ranking #1 on Google as proof of concept, along with tips for writing travel content to get ranked!

Off-Page SEO Still Matters

Beyond the writing itself, Dan covered the technical side: site speed (his site passes Core Web Vitals), descriptive alt text on images, using your own original photography, writing in topic clusters, building internal links and backlinks, and implementing schema markup. Standard stuff, but he showed real examples from his own site to make it stick.

Monetization: Ads vs. Affiliates

Two paths: display ads and affiliate marketing. Ads scale well but need high traffic to be profitable and can hurt user experience (he showed a page absolutely plastered with them as a cautionary tale). Affiliates can start generating income earlier and work well in travel niches — Dan uses TravelPayouts, which aggregates programs for hotels, flights, eSIMs, tours, and more. It even has a WordPress plugin. He showed how he places affiliate links strategically within recommendation sections of his posts.

Future-Proofing Your Content

Dan’s closing advice was sharp: focus on what AI can’t replicate — personal experience, original photography, honest opinions. Keep writing about what people are still searching for. Build a social media presence around your blog. Take a personalized approach. And above all, diversify your traffic sources and income streams.

About Dan Seymour

Dan is a London-born traveller who left the UK in 2015 with a one-way ticket to Mumbai and basically never came back. What was supposed to be a few months turned into over two years in Asia, followed by stints in Australia and New Zealand. He started his blog, Dan Round the World, in 2020 during lockdown, pivoted to remote work in 2021, and has since worked from more than 35 countries.

With 70+ countries under his belt and a blog focused on off-the-beaten-path destinations, airline reviews, and digital nomad life, Dan brings a practitioner’s perspective to SEO — he’s not just theorizing, he’s ranking. He’s been in Chiang Mai since September 2025, and we look forward to hearing more from him at a future meetup!

You can follow his travels and SEO work at:

About WPCNX

WPCNX is Chiang Mai’s WordPress community. We host monthly meetups on the first Saturday of the month — open to designers, developers, freelancers, and anyone working with WordPress.